Transformers Prime Wheeljack gets his toy form only in the official Robots in Disguise (R.I.D.) toyline for the Transformers Prime TV series. These figures are relatively smaller than their previous suddenly-cancelled First Edition figures and are also made of lower quality plastic. Does this mean the R.I.D. figures are bad in general? Let’s find out with Wheeljack.

Car Mode

RID Wheeljack – Car Mode

Wheeljack is packaged in his nice sports car mode that is quite close to his screen counterpart. The red, green and some black highlights definitely tell you it’s a Wheeljack figure. The lack of colours on the side doors makes the figure quite dull looking but otherwise decent overall.

The front (and a little at the back) of the car mode has an off-putting gap, but this is necessary for his designed transformation. The gap also helps to accommodate for a car-battle mode where you can stick the swords at the front of the car, making him look like a battle-ramming vehicle. It does make it look like he has metal tusks if you look at it that way. On the other hand, you can choose to store the swords beneath the car and this doesn’t hamper his rolling feature in any way.

RID Wheeljack – Car with Swords

One obvious thing you’ll notice is how small of a Deluxe figure he is in alt mode at almost ½ inch shorter than most Deluxes in the past. When compared to the First Edition figures though, he is only slightly smaller.

All in all, despite the said issues, this car mode is okay. If you can forgive the smaller size scale, then this alt mode is quite nice and almost show accurate.

Transformation

Quite simple to transform. The leg transformation is unique where lots of panels are slided and folded to give a nice leg design (only from the front).

Robot Mode

RID Wheeljack – Robot Mode

Wheeljack’s robot mode is quite nice and also almost 100% show accurate. His battle mask is on and that’s a neat touch too. It is obvious that he has larger and longer arms and has been loosely known as gorilla arms, plus the car windshield sticks out quite awfully at the bottom of his arms.

One other negative point is the look of the legs if seen from the side. They look like 2 totally different-looking car parts just plastered together. Although from the front, as said before, the legs looks great.

He also has a fake smaller windshield on his chest, so that’s a cheat on Hasbro/Takara Tomy’s part. But it’s not that bad in person.

RID Wheeljack – One Leg Stance

Paint apps are okay and could’ve used a bit more paint to really bring out his character. I will compliment the designers for at least painting the swords a sort of nice matte-silver paint. These help a lot to make the swords look beautiful, and also bring out the detail in the Cybertronian letterings at the base of the blades. Speaking about swords, you can opt to store the swords on his back and in such a way that follows the curved line of the figure – Nice!

Posability-wise, this figure suffers only a little. The arms lack side-to-side swivel rotation joints in the shoulders, or even in the elbows, to allow you to give Wheeljack some good sword-slashing poses. The hands have good articulation and can rotate almost 360 degrees. However because of how large the car panels are, you may need to twist the hand in the position you want first, and then place the sword in the hand(s). It is impossible to make a full 360 degree hand rotation with the sword placed in the hand. But despite the lack of much needed posability in certain parts of the body, Wheeljack still looks good in his robot mode. You won’t be able to pull off the complicated action poses, but as you can see I managed to pull off a few great poses despite the lack of articulation. He’s still quite articulate in short.

RID Wheeljack – Attack Stance

Finally, is this figure worth purchasing? For the most part, it is still a recommended figure. If you like the Wheeljack character from G1 up until now, and/or also like Wheeljack in the Transformers Prime, then this is a worthy pickup. If you don’t care at all for the Transformers Prime show and dislike the designs, I would still say give this toy a chance as the transformation is unique and a fresh design to boot. On the other hand though, if you care a lot about posing your figures in complicated action poses, then it’s a 50/50 chance you will like this figure. The deal break most likely will be how much you like the character from the show. He is not highly recommended, but he is of course recommended.

Conclusion

Almost show accurate car and robot modes that look great in their own ways. Car mode suffers from the gaping hole in the front, and robot mode suffers just a little in terms of posability. A recommended figure nonetheless.